Are you on auto pilot?

Yesterday I shared the learning ladder and the pitfalls of staying unconscious about the habits that get in the way of progress towards our goals every day. It reminded me of a blog I wrote for supply management at the start of the year about being on auto pilot..... 

...Will this be a year of change for you, or the same old, same old? What transpires may not be obvious unless you understand the routines that stand between you and your goals and success.

New years (as well as new jobs, new homes, or new anything) are a great time to reassess the routines we use every day, and to determine if they're helping us move in the right direction or holding us back. 

Routines are simply a set of learned behaviours that over time become unconscious. We stop assessing whether these routines support our success or not, and simply hand over to our autopilot to process the routine successfully.

 

For example:

● We make the first coffee of the day without thought of whether we want a coffee today, or if it really does make us feel better, just because we do it every morning.

● We take a specific route to work because at some point we learned it was quicker. And now we go into automatic pilot, and without any thought of the route we've taken or considering the quicker, cheaper or less stressful alternatives.

● We walk to the canteen at lunch, grab a sandwich and then return to our desk to eat it as we continue working, without thinking whether an alternative lunch break might be better for us and the work we're doing.

A routine emerges after we've followed the same set of procedures for a period of time (anywhere from three to 28 days according to the many books that address facilitating personal change). But there are numerous challenges when trying to set establish new routines that can have us falling back into the same old ways.

● How new is the situation? If it feels too much like the old situation you'll find it very easy to run the old routine within it.

● How hard is the new routine? If it's too difficult, again, it will be easy to fall back into old, known and easy to follow routines.

● How many others around you follow the old or new pattern? Going with, and not against, the routines of others around you will always be easier.

Your motivation to make the change is often the only thing that will make the difference to the outcome. It's the motivation to change that will allow you to stay conscious long enough for the new behaviour to become routines that you can do on automatic pilot, and not fall back on the old unresourceful methods. In other words, the bigger the motivation, the better.

What changes do you want to make for 2014? More importantly what patterns do you need to stop running? And what action do you need to take to ensure the new routines stand a chance of becoming available to your automatic pilot?

 

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out in procurement

You don't know what you don't know

Earlier in the week I was passenger in a car using my mobile phone as a sat nav. As a result we were both introduced to a new, more direct, route to our destination. 

Isn't that what we often do in life - do what we know and what works well for us, whilst remaining oblivious to the options to do things better, quicker or easier.

I was reminded of this again when having a joint "sharing" session on Microsoft with a friend. I was sharing how I use PowerPoint and she was sharing how she uses Excel. I don't think either of us considered ourselves to be novices in the programmes and yet we both learnt so much. Yes we had specific questions we wanted to be answered but the greatest learning came from the shortcuts we saw the other taking "hang on a minute how did you do that?" was a common utterance during our session. 

The learning ladder explains what is going on. 

When we're at the bottom of the ladder and unconsciously incompetent we don't know what we don't know, and are unaware of the potential and possibilities. Then we realise what we don't know and move to conscious incompetence. This awareness often acts as a motivator to take action. As we learn the new skill we then become consciously competent, and slowly as the new skill moves into our unconscious we become unconsciously competent.

For those who have learnt to drive its easy to see the stages you went through along the way. Moving from not knowing what you didn't know, to suddenly realising there was soooo much to learn, to then being very aware of every little thing you were doing (steering, accelerator, brake, mirrors (yes all of them). At the same time as noticing the road conditions and what the other road, and pavement, users were up to. Finally you get to the point where you get to your destination and wonder how you got there. 

 

The stages that are the most "dangerous" are when we're unconscious. 

Unconscious incompetence means we have no understanding that there may be something we don't know. Which means we don't look for the options, nor take action to explore new ways of doing things. Which is what we had been doing when using Excel and PowerPoint, and when driving that route. 

Unconscious competence means we find it difficult to teach others and take for granted what we know. We assume that the patterns we've developed are the most effective means of doing what we're doing. We forget why we do it this way and just do it. 

Whilst staying conscious of our level of awareness for a task can be tiring (because it's using up conscious brain power) its certainly a useful means of being in an optimum position to remain open to new information and new ways of doing things.

Where are you unconsciously incompetent and how might you raise your awareness to ensure you're more effective* in an area in your life? 

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out in purchasing

Alison@thepurchasingcoach.co.uk 07770 538159

* When reviewing the need for change its always useful to consider your current situation. If you're achieving what you want in life and you're doing it in a way that positively supports your mental, emotional and physical well being then its simple and no change is needed. The key is noticing dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness, frustration, anger, tiredness, stress or difficulty in achieving what you want. These are all clues that a change in behaviour could provide some benefit, and therefore it might just be worth the effort to take action and try something different. 

What works for your long term sustainability?

As I generally do at this time of year I was reflecting on the last year and the changes I wanted to make that would ensure that 2014 was even more successful than 2013. It came as no surprise as I did this that one of the new processes I developed during the year came to the fore. 

 

Landscaping Your Life (LYL) is a concept that uses nature as our teacher to provide insight on our life and current situation. I've been using it to facilitate change with others since the late 90s (even using gardening as a metaphor for purchasing with business leaders and managers to help them understand what the devil procurement is all about - but that's another blog entirely). A new LYL process that emerged this year was the ICECAPS checklist. 

The ICECAPS checklist is a reminder that in order to make progress in life we, just like the planet, need to preserve our ICECAPS (achieving this through: Integrity, Creation, Evolution, Collaboration, Action, Perspective and Sustainability). It's only by achieving all seven elements that progress is assured. 

As I reflected on 2013 I realised it was Sustainability with respect to Integrity that that had waned towards the end of the year and should be bolstered as I start the new year. 

Integrity is about knowing who we are, our values, our strengths and our passions. Integrity is about being true to ourselves and our essential nature. From nature's perspective if you're a rose then be a rose. If you're a butterfly be a butterfly. In nature a rose never wants to be, nor tries to be a butterfly. (A pity we so often forget this simple truth that the easiest, less stressful, person to be is yourself). 

 

Integrity is also knowing about what works for us and enables our energy to soar, and knowing what doesn't work and brings our energy crashing to the floor. Otherwise without this energy how can we move into the Creation stage of envisioning the future state we're wanting to move towards or taking the necessary Action to get there? 

 

Today I was reminded of the essential components that allow me to be me. The essential components, or actions, that provide the energy (whether mentally, emotionally, physically or spiritually) to move in the direction of my goals and to stay true to myself. They're not difficult, they're certainly not new -  just very very (perhaps even too) easy in a busy world to forget. Yet when I do forget them the sustainability of my actions is lost, and I live one day to the next in a constant battle trying to retain some sense of balance and self and trying to get back on track. 

 

For me these essential components are:

• Eating more of the right things throughout the day 
• Drinking more water
• Breathing in fresh air
• Getting enough sleep 
• Exercising - especially with weights
• Doing more things I enjoy doing
• Spending time with people I love
• Focusing on the positive and things I have to be grateful for 
• Long baths (a biggie for me as I think its when I'm at my most restful and contemplative)

And perhaps just as importantly:

• Minimising eating the foods that negatively impact me (wheat, night shades & alcohol)  
• Avoiding doing things that don't give me pleasure 
• Reducing time in a state of negativity and fear

I said they weren't new ideas.

 

I know, however, if I follow through on these and commit to doing more of them daily the energy I have for everything else in my life will be significantly improved. A bit like the Buddha above that emerged from the garden this year after 3 or 4 years of being smothered by overgrown shrubs and plants. 

What do you know you need to do more of to help you be even more successful in 2014? Perhaps more importantly what will you do first and when? 

Do let me know how you get on - as you can tell from the frequency that wellbeing crops up here in my blog there's a constant dance going on between getting it right for me and not! 

Festive greetings and wishing you all a 2014 of your wildest dreams come true :-)

Alison

Alison Smith

Inspiring change inside and out

+44 (0)7770 538159 alison@thepurchasingcoach.co.uk